Daily News - Tuesday 6 January 2015

In Australia, the question of how to provide care for ageing family members is largely an individual one. Most care is provided by family members. In 2012, 2.7 million Australians were providing some type of informal (unpaid) family caregiving. Some are “sandwiched”, caring for children and older adults simultaneously. Yet caregiving is not shouldered equally by the entire population: women and minorities are much more likely to provide care.

Those with disabilities themselves are also more likely to be primary dependent carers in Australia. These families are shouldering a high level of carework.

I was 12 years old and the only thing I understood about having cerebral palsy was that I could not walk, I talked a little different and kids asked their embarrassed parents why that boy was in a wheelchair? I had no idea about different models of disability or that I could and would be treated differently from my peers.

I went to a private Christian school in Sydney's Sutherland Shire where I was the only kid in a wheelchair and saw it as no big deal.

Peak disability support organisations have been forced to either close their doors or reduce services and retrench staff thanks to Federal Government funding cuts.

CEO of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO), Matthew Wright, said 10 peak organisations run by people with disability will be left with no choice but to either close their doors or reduce services, with seven organisations subject to drastic funding cuts by outgoing Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews.

The Northern Rivers peak homelessness body says Federal Government funding cuts will widen the "massive gap" in responses to homelessness in regional NSW.

Tony Davies, the chief executive of Northern Rivers Social Development Council, was just one of many not-for-profit workers who received an email detailing the cuts, apparently bought on by the poor Mid-Year Economic Fiscal Outlook.

The federal government has signalled it wants to reduce spending on natural disaster recovery and shift its focus to reducing the risks before an event strikes.

The Greens renewed their calls for the government to take strong action against climate change while fire crews worked to contain blazes in South Australia and Victoria on Sunday.

The justice minister, Michael Keenan, did not directly respond to the climate change criticism, but said the government would speak to state and territory leaders about shifting spending from post-disaster support to upfront mitigation activities.

In recent years, Victoria’s ‘tough on crime’ approach has led to higher imprisonment rates, longer sentences, overcrowded prisons and growing prison expenditure. Meanwhile the community is not becoming any safer. Crime rates have not fallen and recidivism rates remain high, with people reoffending and returning to prison repeatedly.

The Victorian Ombudsman’s investigation into the rehabilitation and reintegration of Victorian prisoners (and subsequent Ombudsman’s discussion paper) was prompted by this growth in prisoner numbers, concern about the high rate of reoffending and the cost to the Victorian community. The investigation aims to ensure prisoner sentences include appropriate rehabilitation and post-release support to help prevent further reoffending.

2014 has been a year in which ‘welfare’, welfare reform, and critical analyses of the lives of those who rely on benefits for most or all of their income have consistently demanded media, political and public attention in the UK. Whether it’s the explosion of what some describe as ‘Poverty Porn’, debates over the merits of the latest proposals to finally ‘cure’ ‘welfare dependency’, or, most recently, discussions about explanations for the growing demand for food banks, ‘welfare’ has consistently been big news. In the popular media and political discussions which accompany these debates, there is often an emphasis on ideas of benefits as a ‘lifestyle choice’ and characterisations of benefits reliance as an inactive and inherently negative state.

In the turbulent culture wars over sex, love, poverty and the future of the American family, Isabel V. Sawhill, a blunt, influential and formidable voice, has long come down squarely on the side of marriage.

Though she is a Democrat and a former Clinton administration official, Sawhill’s staunch defense of marriage has often put the economist at odds with some thinkers on the left who have dismissed the institution as an oppressive vestige of patriarchy.

It’s not so hard to get people, even children as young as four, to help each other out a little bit. The trick, according to a study out today, is to make them feel like they’re part of a low social-status group.

Psychologists have known for a few years now that individuals of lower socioeconomic status tend to empathize more with others, be less individualistic, and, according to a 2010 study, give more of their income to other people and institutions in their communities.

A Liberal MP calling for the goods and services tax (GST) base to be broadened has argued the impacts on poor people could be addressed through a targeted compensation package.

Dan Tehan, the member for Wannon in Victoria, said tax reform was crucial “to maintain our standard of living” and the currently exempt products and services – such as education, health and fresh food – should be subject to the 10% GST.

As 2014 ended, many of us felt as though public life had short-changed us. Not in a monetary sense specifically, though I will come to that. It would seem that with few exceptions, electoral politics had become incapable of satisfying the multiple demands placed on it, and the reason is quite simple: it can’t.

No matter where in the world you look, Europe, North America and Japan in particular, though we are not exempt, countries are having to come to grips with the fact that the social democratic welfare state idea that dominated the past century or so has become unsustainable.

Because of its complexity, mental health is a compelling example of the challenges associated with assigning roles and responsibilities in Australia’s broader health care arrangements. There is in fact no such thing as a mental health ‘system’; instead, this ‘system’ is shorthand for the many systems and services consumers and carers may encounter. For the most part, these services and systems are poorly integrated, overseen by different parts of government, based on widely differing organising principles, and not working towards a common goal.

The Commonwealth and the States and Territories both have roles in policy, funding, and regulation in mental health. These roles have evolved in piecemeal fashion and have usually not been defined with respect to an overarching vision shared across governments and portfolios. It is therefore no surprise that consumers find the system enormously difficult to navigate.

The state and territories’ VET systems interact with a range of other service systems, the majority of which are currently the primary responsibility of the Commonwealth (e.g.employment services, income support and welfare, and higher education). These systems are all linked by a common objective of supporting individuals to get employment, while using different approaches to achieving this. The employment services system connects people with jobs, and employers with employees. The VET and higher education systems provide individuals with the skills and knowledge they need to do jobs. The income support and welfare system provides individuals with financial support and other support services, including while they are searching for a job and undertaking some forms of training.

Known as a fierce, thoughtful intellect, Foley is an avid reader with a natural interest in policy matters, whom colleagues consider the party's standout performer in the upper house this term.

A committed Catholic, Mr Foley was elected to the NSW upper house in June 2010 to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Ian Macdonald. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of NSW – the first generation of his family to gain a university education.

Mr Foley listed his priorities as job creation, investment in health and education and protection of the natural environment.

Foley's weakness is not in his party values, but in his policy beliefs. As a product of Labor's Left faction, he has been to hundreds of meetings where the poor deluded souls sit around praising industry intervention, corporate subsidies and anti-privatisation campaigns.

The success of Australia's economic liberalisation program in the 1980s and 90s, producing a quarter-of-a-century of continuous wealth and income creation, has had no impact on their world-view.

To listen to Foley, his leadership predecessor Robertson and the other dinosaurs of the NSW union movement, none of this economic progress is real. Tens of thousands of new double-storey homes, small businesses and cashed-up tradies in Western Sydney are simply a mirage.

Former Howard government Minister Peter Reith has attacked Tony Abbott for "not lifting a finger" on industrial relations and job creation, as the federal government attempts to reset the economic debate about the fairness of its budget.

The Abbott government planned to meet head-on Labor's charge that its budget is unfair, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said, adding it was unfair to rob our children and grandchildren of their opportunities to pay for today's lifestyle.

But Mr Reith said unfair industrial relations laws were stopping young people from getting jobs and he criticised Prime Minister Tony Abbott for not doing anything to solve the problem.

The 2014 budget debate has been like no other because there has been no genuine debate. From the outset Labor has refused to engage in economic dialogue, instead invoking faux outrage and playing the morality card to great effect.

But the truth is morality — namely, addressing gross unfairness dealt to younger Australians — is entirely on the government’s side.

... the health, industry, education, employment, defence and foreign affairs departments shelled out more than $1.43 million on media monitoring between July and October. Media monitoring involves departments and often their ministers being provided with article clippings and TV reports. It can also include scanning social media.

The government's latest media monitoring deal came into force on New Year's Day - a $170,000, six-month contract to monitor news for the media-sensitive Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Labor spent $110,000 for the same thing but the-then Coalition opposition listed it as one of "50 examples of Labor waste and mismanagement under the Gillard government" in it's so-called Little book of big Labor waste.

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Catholic Social Services Australia represents a national network of 52 Catholic social service organisations that provide direct support to hundreds of thousands of people in need each year on behalf of the Catholic Church. Our agencies provide a diverse range of support from assisting women and children escaping family violence, housing and homelessness support, to mental health and disability services. They also work in partnership with Indigenous people, and offer support and services to people seeking asylum and those who are refugees.